New Delhi: Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi on Thursday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide free education to children who have lost either both the parents or the earning parent to Covid-19. She said NavodayaVidyalayas across the country can help impart education to these children.

In a letter to the PM, she said the nation owes it to such children to give them “hope for a robust future”. Gandhi’s letter comes days after Congress leader GS Bali from Himachal Pradesh announced that the party will adopt all the children orphaned by to the pandemic in Kangra district of the state.

The Congress chief also recalled how the creation of NavodayaVidyalayas across the country was her husband and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s most significant legacy. It was his dream to make high-quality modern education accessible and affordable to talented youth, predominantly from rural areas, she said. As India battles the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, thousands of children have lost both their parents and have no one to look after them, others are in a situation where a single surviving parent is unable to take care of them financially and psychologically, she said.

Studies reveal that parental loss can induce anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances. It can also impact a family’s economic status, which further results in children’s poor academic performance and school drop-outs. Apart from this, children orphaned by Covid are also being targeted by trafficking gangs and police have been flagging the issue. Only last week, Uttar Pradesh Police warned that social media posts appealing for the adoption of kids orphaned during the pandemic could well be by child trafficking gangs.